Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, hydrologists tell us that California is facing the worst drought in 1,200 years. With the rain season officially over, our snowpack is just 3 percent of normal, and many reservoirs are already drawn down perilously. Californians are now threatened with draconian fines if they take too long in the shower.

This amendment forbids the Bureau of Reclamation from purchasing scarce water in California in the midst of this catastrophic drought for the purpose of dumping it in rivers to adjust the water temperature to nudge baby fish to swim into the ocean.

As ridiculous as this sounds, that is exactly what the Bureau of Reclamation has been doing throughout this drought. It is using money taken from families' taxes in order to purchase water that is desperately needed by these same families and then literally dumping it down the drain in front of them.

This exacerbates an already perilous scarcity of water while forcing the price of our remaining supplies even higher. It also makes a mockery of the sacrifices that every Californian is making to stretch every drop of water in their homes. And it undermines the moral authority of the government to demand further conservation from the people when it is squandering water so outrageously itself.

We don't know exactly how much the Bureau is spending for this purpose because they don't account for how their purchased water is used.

This measure would forbid them from wasting any of our water on such frivolities as adjusting water temperatures.

Now if this sounds harsh for the fish, let's remember that in a drought like this one, there would be no water in our rivers. There would be no fish. The dams make it possible to save the water from wet years so that we can get through the dry years. That doesn't work if we open floodgates in an extreme drought like this to make the fish happy.

This month, the Bureau of Reclamation released nearly 30,000 acre-feet of water from the New Melones Dam in my district for that purpose. That is enough water to meet the annual residential needs of a population of nearly 300,000 human beings for the express purpose of encouraging the offspring of some 29 steelhead trout to swim toward the ocean--which, by the way, they tend to do anyway. And to add insult to injury, almost all of these smolts will be eaten by predators before they reach the ocean.

So let me put this again and quite bluntly. In order to benefit a handful of steelhead trout, the Bureau sacrificed enough water to meet the annual needs of a human population of 300,000. At $700 per acre-foot, the cost of this exercise amounted to $21 million.

This is the lunacy of the environmental left and the policies they have imposed on our State and our country. It needs to stop now. And to the extent that we can do so through the power of the purse, we must.

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, perhaps from the damp State of Ohio, this might look like a solution in search of a problem. I would invite the gentlelady to come to California in the midst of this drought to see the devastation it is causing.

The Bureau just released 10 billion gallons for this stated purpose, to adjust river water temperatures and to nudge steelhead trout smolts to the ocean. They weren't coy about it. They were very, very clear. They have been very clear in their budget requests for this practice.

But let me, just for the sake of argument, accept the gentlelady's point that they have no plans to do so. Well, if that is the case, she should have no objections to this measure. The fact is, they not only have plans to do so, but they have been doing so, and it is devastating what little precious water is remaining behind our precious reservoirs.

We will run out by the end of the summer if these practices continue. And if they continue and if we do, I think that the gentlelady will need to make an apology to the 38 million suffering people of California.

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